Denny Hamlin enjoyed a successful weekend in Las Vegas before the NASCAR Cup Series race even began.
Somehow, despite two decades of going to Sin City, Hamlin had never played a slot machine until this weekend and he immediate took over a hot seat and won while playing Buffalo Slot.
“I’ve won (money) in the hotel but that was my first time at the slots,” Hamlin said when asked about it during his media availability on Saturday morning at the track. “It was a good way to start the weekend and gave me a margin of error for the next few days.”
Hamlin shared a video to his Instagram page in which his $300 bet was multiplied by a factor of 420 and resulting in a total winning of $126,150.
‘Fun game,’ a media member deadpanned during his media availability.
“I agree with you, fun game,” Hamlin said with a laugh.
So this was seriously his first time playing a slot machine?
“Yeah first time playing slots,” Hamlin said. “My buddy plays them all the time. He gave up his hot seat for me and it turned out well. There was a big one right before that one, and that was the BIG big one.”
Did he walk away from it?
“Yeah, you have to, because the great thing about slots is that it freezes you because someone has to walk over and pay you so it’s really to easy to press cash out,” he said.
His success continued into Saturday where he posted another win of $86,000.
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Just how much did he win over the weekend?
Hamlin starts 15th on Sunday seeking his first win of the season.
“Not super fast on the short run but I don’t know how much of that is car versus driver,” Hamlin said. “We’ll be fine. When you have these races where the track is cool in the morning and it will be hotter for an afternoon race on a mile and a half, we know we’ll be better, so I feel pretty confident.”
Hamlin is also mired in a 29 race winless streak.
“It feels like it’s been a really long time,” Hamlin said. “It sucks. We lost some speed at the end of last year and now we’re starting to come back to these race tracks where we can gauge where we’re at as far as this season is concerned so feels like an eternity.”
